The Weight of Living
by Gillian Beilschmidt
Summary: In the aftermath of a zombie apocalypse, siblings Amelia and Matthew take to the back roads of the US and Canada to survive. They're determined to stick it out until the end, but it won't be without cost. They'll meet Antonio, who is determined to kill as many zombies as he can; a slew of strange Eastern Europeans; and Gillian, looking for her brother. What is the cost of survival?


_Hi everyone! I'm very excited to be writing this story. It's my first attempt at a really serious story, as opposed to the cutesy romance fics I usually write. I hope you enjoy!_

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><p>Ch. 1<p>

Amelia Jones knelt over the edge of an icy, turquoise lake, filling her canteen with the pure, sweet water. She dipped her hand in the freezing water and lifted it to her mouth, shivering as she drank the partly frozen liquid. It tasted cleaner than any water she could have gotten back home in Chicago, but just to be safe, she added a purifying tablet to her canteen, to rid it of any bacteria before she drank the rest. One could never be too careful these days. She had learned that the hard way, after throwing up for four days in a row after drinking pond water in the middle of nowhere, Michigan, a few months ago.

She stood up, wiping the moisture from her lips, and surveyed the still, quiet forest. It was heartbreakingly beautiful. Tall trees as far as the eye could see, and the steep slopes of the Canadian Rockies surrounded the endless forests for miles. From the top of one of the peaks, one could see the vast plains of Alberta to the east, golden in the bright morning sun with the bloom of the canola flowers. She could still smell the oily plants from the mountains, if the winds were strong enough.

She needed to go hunting later today. If that failed, she would have to go into town to try to barter with the few people that remained there. She didn't want to do that, though. It made her uneasy. You couldn't trust anyone these days. She didn't like the villagers and their gaunt, hollow-eyed faces. She probably didn't look much better, of course; food was scarce these days and this winter had been particularly hard. If it wasn't for Mattie she didn't know how she would make it through.

Speaking of Mattie…

She needed to head back to camp to meet up with her brother. It was only about three or four in the afternoon but it would be dark soon. Night came on so quickly during the winter and it made her uneasy. She had grown up in Chicago; even at night, there were enough street lights and neon signs to light her way home. Here, out under the velvety black sky and twinkling stars, it was a whole different kind of darkness, one that unnerved her even after a year of living out on the road.

She gathered her things into her rucksack and began walking across the pine needle-coated path back up the mountain to the little alcove where her brother waited. When she pushed back the hanging moss that covered the opening of the cave and didn't immediately see her brother, she didn't panic. He was probably still out hunting. They had had nothing but rabbits and squirrels for days, and earlier that day he had found elk tracks in front of their dwelling. He was probably out searching for it now.

She walked further into the dry, warm cave and sat down on the old Navajo print blanket she had bought on a family vacation in New Mexico several years ago…back when their parents were still alive. She fingered the colorful fabric sadly. What she wouldn't give to hear her dad's booming laugh or her mother singing as she washed dishes in the kitchen. She missed them so much her whole body seemed to ache sometimes.

It had only been a year since everything had gone so horribly wrong. How had it been only a year?

She began to rekindle the remains of the old fire in the makeshift fire pit in the middle of the floor, shivering even now that she was out of the wind. She stared into the crackling orange and yellow tongues of flame, remembering how difficult those first few days had been, when no one had any idea what was going on.

It felt like one of those Biblical plagues she had learned about in Sunday school as a child.

News reporters desperately trying to explain what was going on as yellow-eyed people filled the streets, their skin an unnatural grayish-green, moaning and screaming and salivating, filled with a seemingly endless desire to devour. They still didn't know exactly how it started; some people thought it was a government experiment gone wrong; some thought it was a form of biological warfare unleashed on North America by terrorists; still others thought it was God's wrath finally descending upon them. No one knew. It had happened almost overnight. Amelia had just graduated from college, a physics student looking to work for NASA, when it all broke out. She still remembered the call she received in her cozy Chicago apartment from her brother.

_"Ames?" He asked urgently. "Ames, have you seen the news?" _

_ "Mattie!" She exclaimed, delighted. "Man, you haven't called me in forever! I thought you dropped off the face of the planet! What's shakin'?" _

_ "Amelia," he said desperately, his voice cracking a little, and that's when she realized that something was very wrong. "Amelia. I need you to get out of Chicago. Right now."_

_ "What? Why?" She asked, an uneasy feeling beginning to gnaw at the inside of her stomach. _

_"There's been some kind of outbreak, some kind of highly contagious outbreak, and cities are the most vulnerable at the moment."_

_ "Outbreak? What kind of outbreak? Is this about the ebola thing? I told you, everyone is overreacting, you can't catch that unless—"_

_ "No, it's not ebola, listen, I don't know what it is," he said, cutting her off. "It's…people are dying, Ames. Hundreds of people. And they're…they're going crazy. They're killing other people."_

_ There was a roaring in her ears and she suddenly leaned against the kitchen counter for support. "They're…killing each other?" She asked dully. This sounded like some kind of horror movie. This couldn't be happening. And then—_

_ "Mom and Dad?" She asked suddenly, her voice cracking. "Have you…have you heard from them?"_

_ Silence._

_ "Matthew?" She whispered._

_ He didn't answer. "Why don't you come to my place near Toronto…we'll figure something out…can you get on a plane? I can wire you some money—"_

_ "But what about Mom and Dad?" she choked out._

_ "I'll explain everything when you get here. I love you, Ames. Be careful. Get here as soon as you can." There was a burst of static and then a dial tone. She shut off her phone numbly before stumbling over to her room to throw some things in a bag. _

Looking back, she reflected, she was so lucky that Matthew had called her when he did. They had shut down the airport only hours after she had flown out of Chicago to quarantine the city. Matthew met her in Toronto and then they drove out of the city to one of the smaller suburbs where he lived, safely isolated for the time being. That was when he told her what she feared most; that their parents had died. They had been on a vacation in Florida when the plague struck. Warm, humid Florida was a breeding ground for contagious diseases; they hadn't lasted the first week. They hadn't even been able to say goodbye to them. They almost couldn't grieve, they were so terrified and shocked. They had only stayed at Matthew's place long enough to stock up on supplies before they set out west, sticking to the remote areas of Canada as the plague continued to spread across North America.

They learned quickly that travelling alone was safest. Large camps tended to attract scavengers and thieves. Not only that, but there was the risk of becoming attached to people, which was always dangerous in times like these. No, it was best to just look out for yourself and your family. That was what Amelia had learned. It was hard, and it was lonely, but they had to do it in order to survive. They managed to do alright for themselves. Their father had taught them both how to hunt at an early age, and both of the Jones-Williams children loved the outdoors. They were perhaps more well suited to this lifestyle than most people. They knew how to find fresh drinking water, which plants were poisonous and which were edible, how to skin a deer and cook it. And living on the road in these conditions had forced them to learn how to barter. They didn't have much to their names; only a coat apiece, some pants and shirts, various toiletries, a backpack, some knives, and two rifles. It wasn't a lot, but it was enough, for now.

Amelia was just ready for the winter to be over. Even in the Windy City, it had never been as cold as it was here in Canada. She huddled over the fire, trying to take her mind off of it as she waited for her brother to return.

He finally appeared with two large, plump quails in each hand, ducking under the curtain of moss. "Hey," he greeted her with his usual gentle smile. He didn't smile as much as he used to, so she found herself more grateful than ever for the few times that he did.

"Hey," she said. "What happened to the elk?"

He looked slightly put out. "I got us quails, didn't I?"

"Yeah," she agreed. She stood up and took one of the dead birds from him before plopping down on the cold stone ground again, plucking out the feathers. "Elk would've been nice, though."

"You can go hunting next time, then," he said, affronted, before sitting down next to her and preparing his bird the same way.

"Aw, I'm just playing, Mattie. Anything is better than another one of those god-awful squirrels." She hummed to herself as she prepared their dinner, slicing up the flesh from the bone and putting it in a makeshift frying pan over the fire. The fat began to crackle and bubble over the heat and her stomach grumbled noisily. "I take it back. This is better than elk," she said, sniffing appreciatively.

Her brother grinned, but his smile vanished almost as quickly as it had appeared. "I think we should leave soon. Tomorrow, even."

"Already? We've only been here a few days," she half-whined. Moving constantly was exhausting. Just when she got used to one place, they had to move again. "Why are you in such a hurry? I feel so safe here."

Matthew was silent for a moment. The firelight cast strange shadows across his normally open face. Finally, his strange eyes met hers, an odd color somewhere between violet and blue. "There were other tracks outside," he said in a hushed voice.

Amelia's heart beat quickened. "Not animal tracks?" She asked.

He shook his head. "I think we're being followed."

All of a sudden, the delicious smell of the roasting bird made her feel nauseous. "Did you see anybody?"

"No," he admitted. "But they only appeared after I went after the elk today. When you were here alone." He looked extremely worried.

She forced out a fake-sounding laugh. "Well, no harm done, right? I guess we'll just have to take turns staying up tonight. It's probably just scavengers. They're too cowardly to attack. They probably just wanted to loot some of our things…" Her eyes flickered around the interior of the cave, but nothing seemed to be missing. All the same, she reached into her rucksack and pulled out her Bowie knife, running her index finger along the sharp edge for reassurance. No one would mess with her and Mattie if she had anything to say about it.

"Where should we go next, then?" She asked, resigned.

"Hmm…" He added the cut up chunks of quail meat to the frying pan, a thoughtful look on his face. "Not sure. I hadn't really thought that far. What do you think?"

"Somewhere further south, _please_. This cold is killing me," she complained.

"The cold is our best protection," he said in his irritating older-brother voice that she had always hated growing up. "Those…creatures…can't survive up here."

"Yeah, well, I'm not going to be able to survive up here much longer, either," she quipped. "What about Utah? Or Arizona?"

He frowned. "Isn't Arizona mostly flat? Where would we hide? It's not like there are any trees out there."

"Okay, well, northern California, then. That's at least further south than we are right now. And there's plenty of forests we could camp out in."

"Alright," he said peaceably. "If that's what you want, Ames."

"And we should probably go into town one last time, too," she added. "I need a few last items."

He looked uneasy. "I don't think that's a good idea…can't it wait?" She knew he didn't like the little encampment of people that lived about two miles away from them, in a tiny town that had somehow escaped the plague. They were never anything less than polite, but the way they looked at the two siblings sometimes, well, it was a little unnerving. It was winter, and food was scarce. They didn't like to wonder how many people had been in the village before the winter had set in.

"We're leaving tomorrow. It'll be fine," she said. "We'll take our guns and everything. It'll be fine. You worry too much."

He scowled. "I don't think you worry enough."

She smirked. "I don't need to. I'm a better shot than you are." She ignored his irritated sighing and scooped the freshly cooked meat out of the dish onto one of their tin plates and handed it to him. "Now eat up. We've got a long night before us."

Truthfully, Amelia didn't sleep much that night. She lay half-awake for most of the night despite the warmth of her sleeping bag, watching the steady rise and fall of her brother's chest in the sleeping bag next to her. He always slept at the entrance of the cave, in case someone came across them in the night. She half smiled. It was like when they were kids, and he made her hold his hand when they crossed the street. It was sweet. He was still trying to look out for her, even in this nightmarish world.

She finally managed to fall asleep just in time for the sunrise, it seemed. She saw the bright red rays behind her eyelids before she opened her eyes fully. She groaned, turning her back to the sunrise.

"Rise and shine," Matthew said without his usual playfulness. There was a weary note in his voice that made her roll over and face her brother, squinting to see him through her bedhead.

"You okay, Matt?" She asked, forcing herself to wake up.

"Just a bit nervous," he said tersely. He sat crouched over the makeshift fire, warming up some oatmeal. He tried to sweeten the bland meal by adding a few blueberries they had found a few days ago, but there was only so much he could do. They had both lost a lot of weight living in the open. Now they both had the lean, haggard look of scavengers. He handed her one of their few bowls wordlessly.

"Thanks," she mumbled, scooping some of the beige breakfast food into her unwilling mouth. Yeah, they definitely had to get some real food. What she wouldn't do for a pizza…her stomach growled.

After breakfast, they gathered everything up into packs they could carry on their backs, careful not to leave any signs of their presence. They covered up the fire pit and wiped away anything that might look suspicious to trackers. Satisfied, they both turned and headed out of the cave.

It was about a three mile trek into town, but Amelia didn't mind. It was nice to be moving about with a purpose for once. They still had some leftover quail meat that they could eat for dinner and hopefully they could barter something in town for lunch, so that meant no need for hunting today. And they would be on the road again, which, while it made her nervous, was also kind of exciting. She was ready to leave.

The town was even more still than usual.

Amelia had grown accustomed to the lack of voices she associated with cities, but to hear no children, no dogs barking, no nothing…it was eerie. Being located at the base of the mountains, it hadn't been terribly crowded before the breakout, but now…it felt like a ghost town, even though she _knew_ people lived here. Instinctively, she stepped closer to Matthew, falling into step behind him so she could sweep the area behind them. They walked slowly but with firm steps, each of them with a gun propped against their shoulders. The windows of the houses were all closed against the cold; most of the curtains were pulled shut as well. The gas station door banged slightly in the breeze, its shattered windows a testament to how useful the door was now. Oddly enough, a single gray goose wandered through town, looking as confused as Amelia felt.

Where was everyone?

They finally made it to the town center, where there were usually a few stalls set up with raggedy traders looking to barter their measly goods. But the familiar old woman wasn't there, nor the young father with the little girl, nor the angry-looking woman from the nearby reservation.

The stalls were there, but they were completely empty.

Amelia felt the hairs on the back of her neck rise as she stepped forward to lift the flap covering one of the stalls in the middle of the square.

"Amelia, don't—" Matthew began in a soft hiss, but it was too late.

She shrieked as a bird flew out from under the fabric , screeching angrily at being disturbed, and stumbled backwards.

She clapped a hand over her mouth, but it was too late. Both siblings looked around quickly, for a sign that anyone had heard them.

Matthew spotted someone, and she turned to follow his gaze. Coming from the east, down one of the narrow dirt streets, hobbled the young father she recognized from their previous trips to the town. He didn't have the little girl with him, though. Amelia wondered if she was with the rest of their family. She relaxed slightly as he approached. She recognized him, at least. A few feet away, Matthew remained rigid, untrusting.

"Hello," she said shakily, with a slight laugh. "There was a bird under there," she explained, gesturing to the abandoned stall. "Gave me a bit of a scare." She smiled hesitantly.

The man looked at her with hollow eyes, tinged yellow at the corners, and said nothing.

"Do you know where everyone went, then?" She asked quietly. "We…we wanted to do a bit of trading before…before we…"

Something about the way he stood made her wary. He wouldn't look her in the eyes, either. He stared at the ground listlessly, his hands at his sides. He gripped something very tightly in his right hand, but she could see it wasn't a weapon; now that she focused on it, she could see that it was a doll. The doll that belonged to his little daughter.

She took a very slight step back.

His head jerked upwards at the movement, and she froze, like a deer caught in headlights. She heard Matthew shift as he pulled his rifle into position.

"Easy, there," her brother murmured in his gentle voice. "Is everything alright?" Not threatening, yet, but she could hear the warning in his voice.

The man's hollow eyes flickered between the two of them before his chapped lips parted around the whispered words, "They took her."

Amelia felt her stomach drop and a roaring sounded in her ears. There could only be one 'her', only one 'them'. The townspeople had taken his daughter. She couldn't pretend she didn't know why. She couldn't pretend that she didn't notice how the population of the tiny Canadian town had been dwindling, couldn't pretend that she hadn't heard the very light pattering of footsteps outside of their dwelling on milder nights.

"I'm so sorry," Amelia began, as she began to walk slowly backwards. "So sorry for your loss—" The words were mechanical, practiced, words she had heard on medical shows. '_So sorry, the patient has died, so sorry for your loss, ma'am…'_

He took a hesitant step towards them, a strange light dawning in his eyes. "Took my little girl," he whispered in that awful, hoarse voice. Like he had been screaming for days. "Took my little girl away…" Suddenly, he paused in his slow advance, a calculating look on his face. "Say…say why don't you come with me for a spell, huh? I have some goods you might need…'fore you go on the road again…"

"We're not—" Matthew began, not wanting him to know of their plans.

"You're not leaving?" The man repeated, a sly smile crossing his face. "Then why'd ya come into town with all yer things, huh? Uh uh…" He mumbled something to himself that they didn't catch. „Come on, got some goods ya might need…"

Amelia and Matthew exchanged a look; both of them were resolutely set against it. "You know, I think we might be alright for a few more days," Matthew said neutrally, and she was grateful for it, because something about his manner made her so scared she could barely speak around the lump in her throat. She was good at confronting fears head on, but this, this dancing around, terrified her. "But thank you. Stay safe, yeah?" Calmly, confidently, he turned and walked away, careful to keep parallel to the man so he could watch his movements as he headed back the way they came.

Amelia followed her brother, her eyes never leaving the hollow-eyed man until they left the square, and he disappeared from sight.

As soon as they couldn't see him anymore, Matthew whispered fiercely, "Amelia, _run_."

She didn't pause to ask him why. She fastened the straps on her pack and took off sprinting after Matthew as they ran from the outskirts of town, passing the half-demolished grocery store as they headed away from the mountains, out towards the plains.

She soon realized why they were running; she could hear panting not far behind them.

Had that man set the villagers on them? She couldn't think why, except that they were hungry. Maybe it was just a vain attempt to try to negotiate with them to get his daughter back; but she was probably long gone. She didn't have time to think about that as she dashed after her brother, heading out into the woods before the wide yellow canola fields.

Her lungs felt like they were on fire; the cold air stung at her skin and brought tears to her eyes; she blinked them away and stumbled after her brother. She eventually passed him, despite his superior height, and made the mistake of looking back. He just wasn't as fast as she was. It was then that she saw six of the villagers running after them at break neck speed, and one of them had a gun. Two of them just had knives. She screamed. _"Matthew, faster!"_

"I'm trying!" He yelled back, a panicked look in his pale eyes. Blindly, he reached in his backpack for a weapon, and threw the first thing he could at them without stopping, a single fork. It didn't even hit them, and he stumbled over a rock, nearly crashing.

She paused for a heartbeat, grabbed the sleeve of his winter parka, and yanked as hard as she could, forcing him to keep up with her. They reached the edge of the forest, and she yelled, "A tree! Climb a tree! We'll be safer there!" Although they were underfed, they were much stronger than the villagers, who weren't much more than teeth and bones. The strongest of them, a man in his fifties missing the index finger on his left hand, was close on them, though. She prayed that he would be too weak to make the climb up one of these trees.

She took a running leap at one of the giant trees, grappling for some sort of support. Her feet found a notch in the food and she pulled herself up to one of the lower branches with a grunt, swinging her legs over. She reached down for Matthew, only a few feet behind her. The villagers were a scant twenty yards away now. With a loud groan, she heaved him up beside her, and they frantically scrambled for a higher branch, as they were still not far off the ground. They managed to make it about ten feet up the tree by the time the villagers reached the base of the tree.

Seeing one of them reach for their pistol, Amelia did the same. She loaded the gun and fired rapidly, hitting the young woman directly in the forehead, killing her instantly.

The other five paused for a moment and stared up at her in surprise. Amelia bit her lip. She would have to kill all of them, or they would just pick up the dead woman's gun and shoot her first. She fired at the man in the middle with the missing finger, hitting him in the meat of his shoulder this time. He grunted but continued to stare up at her, an insane look in his eyes. To her disbelief, he stumbled over to the tree and put his feet in a wedge in the bark, as if he intended to climb it.

She only had a few bullets left.

"Matthew? We're going to have to kill all of them," she told her brother, who was trying to catch his breath.

The villagers were murmuring now, but she couldn't hear what they were saying. She reloaded her gun and fired again, this time missing completely. She cursed. She wasn't sure how many bullets she had left, but she had to make every hit count.

"Okay," her brother acquiesced in a resigned voice. He hated killing even more than she did; he had always been such a softie, except during his college hockey phase.

"How many bullets do you have left?" She turned to him, and watched with confusion as he drew out a shovel head from his backpack. "Matthew, what—"

He ignored her, staring down at the villagers, before decisively hurtling it at the young boy at the edge of the circle, who knelt to pick up the dead woman's gun. As surely as a knife, the weight of the falling shovel cut cleanly into the boy's head with a gruesome sound. Amelia felt bile rose in her throat at the terrible sight, but she forced it down.

Now there were only four.

For a moment, they hung there in the tree, frozen, as they tried to gauge the others' reactions. After a tense minute, one of them held up their hands in a gesture of surrender and knelt, very slowly, to pick up the arms of one of the bodies. Never breaking eye contact, they began to walk away. The other three followed suit, content with their new meal, or so it seemed.

Amelia's eyes began to prickle from staying open for so long. When they finally disappeared from view, she had to blink tears away several times as the wind dried out her eyes. She let out a shaky breath and reached over and grabbed her brother's hand and squeezed it tightly.

"Let's go," she whispered.

He squeezed his eyes shut tightly, and a look of real pain crossed his face. "I hate killing these people, Ames," he said in a low voice, although their attackers had gone away. "I hate it." She had never noticed the crows' feet at the corners of his eyes until now. She wondered how long they had been there.

She leaned over and hugged him protectively. She hated killing too, but it was different for Matthew. Matthew had always been so tender, even when they were little. He cried on the first hunting trip their parents ever took them on, while Amelia proudly stood by the rabbit she had shot. Its white fur shone so cleanly in the wintry sun, except for the neat little black hole in its forehead. She couldn't imagine how much pain he must be in now. He was a pediatrician before the disease broke out. "They're…not really people anymore."

He didn't say anything.

They climbed down in silence.

She decided to walk behind him for a little while to give him some space, and kept her eyes open for any more attackers.

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><p><em>I am planning on switching between Matthew and Amelia's view points pretty often, but I'll stick to one view point per chapter to keep it from being confusing.<em>

_But yeah, this story is mostly going to be about the two of them-two of my favorite characters! And there really aren't enough stories about siblings out there, and AmeCan is one of my favorite sibling pairs._

_They will be meeting a lot of other characters, don't worry-in fact, it'll start next chapter. But if you've read my other stories and are looking for one that's more fluffy, this isn't it, sorry. I do plan on having a romance subplot for one of them, but it will be a **subplot**. (I'm putting that in bold, for myself, because I am weak and love cute love stories.) And, it is a zombie apocalypse story, so I probably don't need to say this but-there will be character deaths._

_Anyway, I'll probably have the next chapter up soon, I'm already about halfway done with it. Cheers!_


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